#Soap box

[ihrtmichael]

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[abductedlawnchair]

*ranting and raving and stomping on rooftops and flailing my arms about* HUMANS ARE AMIMALS!!! WE ARE ANIMALS!!! QUIT ACTING LIKE WE'RE NOT!!!

I am so goddamn tired of society acting like we're not!!! I am so goddamn tired of us as a society acting like we are above all the other animals!!! I do not care that we are the apex!!! We are fucking ANIMALS!!! Like, just take a step back and observe us like we have our own nature documentary on Nat Geo or something. Maybe with David Attenborough or whatever, idc. Just imagine it.

We are a species of apes that just so happened to gain the ability of extremely complex and abstract thought, capability of language, an almost absurd level of self-awareness, and the type of intelligence that allowed us to discover, invent, and develop tools. A species of apes that just so happen to have such a crazy level of curiosity that we have the capability to learn about the world around us, and beyond.

The way we learn and develop is fascinating. If you observe a toddler from that standpoint, watching them interact with the world around them, you'd see how natural curiosity is to us, in our human nature. Neil deGrasse Tyson has literally said that children are beings of chaos because they're curious and learning about the world around them.

We all have children in us, just like we have our ancestors in us!!! Our brains are wired like theirs. Relatively, we have been in this state of society for an extremely short amount of time!! Our brains and nervous systems are still wired to survive and keep us safe from predators and other dangers!!

We are social creatures!! We need love and connection to survive!! We can't do things on our own. The only reason we ever got to where we are is because we work together and communicate and share knowledge. The way society is right now is too isolating!! Humans aren't meant to be fighting for a place in society!! Haven't you seen zookeepers?? Or anyone who cares for nature in any capacity?? We have an incredible capacity for compassion and caretaking, because we have the capability to know and understand the inner workings of ourselves and countless other species!! Caretaking and compassion is literally an innate human trait!! We're supposed to take care of each other and the world around us!! We literally are capable of pack bonding with ROOMBAS, for fucks sake!! Little robots that our ape brains see moving around on its own, being part of our homes, and thinks "little guy is alive... I love him"!!! Isn't that beautiful???

We were an evolution of Mother Earth, Herself, to grow Her and expand Her and care for Her!!! Whether you believe in intelligent design or just the absurdity of it all, it still happened like that. We have the capacity to care for Her in an evolved level, yet we're fucking it up so badly right now.

Indigenous cultures have always been on the right track. They've always been right about this. They have always known that we are all pieces of the same organism, just like the atoms and cells and organs and electricity in your body are all part of one body!!

And btw, culture is another HUGE part of us being social creatures!! Being expressive and creative and connected!! That's part of our nature!! We're meant to sing and dance and laugh together!! That connectivity of us being a collective is So Important!!! Making fun of people for being "sheep", or having "herd mentality" every single time is so stupid because yes!!! Yes that's EXACTLY how we are supposed to be!!! We are social creatures, remember?? The whole point is that we do things together!!!

I know how society is rn isn't the end all, be all, but it just breaks my heart that this Capitalism shit goes against some of the most beautiful parts of humanity!! We are animals!!! We are cute and curious and compassionate and social and we need warmth and sunlight and sustenance from the earth and water and sleep and shelter from the elements!! We have instincts just like everything else!! We came from the dust and we will return to the dust because we will always be part of the Earth, just like all the other animals!! And somehow, despite all odds, despite how robotic Capitalism wants us to be, our human nature seeps into everything.

Take care of yourself! You are an animal, after all! <3

*climbs off rooftop... for now*

[adorkabletwilightandfriends]

Adorkable Twilight & Friends - “The Tyranny"

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[bruisedconscience-reblogs]

Please go watch Argylle!

I don’t imagine it’s going to do well at the box office, which, like…. Stinky.

Henry Cavill is not the main character but he shows up a lot!

If you want to see Sam Rockwell be a goof in a Kingsman-adjacent universe and see a midsize woman kick ass, please go! The movie is long because SO MUCH HAPPENS. I like the soundtrack too!

Pleaseeeee!

[artist-issues]

I’m going to talk about something potentially suicide-related, so watch out.

Music can’t save you.

I keep seeing that all over the place—seriously, all over the place, not just from actual musicians— and I feel like someone needed to say it.

All you’re really claiming when you say “music saved me” is:

Music has a powerful effect.

During a time in my life where I felt like giving up, that powerful effect changed what I was feeling so that I did not give up.

Okay those two things are true, but let’s take a step back for a second.

If you’re lost in the woods and considering giving up, sitting down, and letting yourself starve or be eaten by wild animals, a bird could have the same impact. You might look up, see a colorful shape flying through the trees, and decide to follow it. Now you’re moving. Now you’re doing something, instead of giving up—regardless of whether or not you can keep up with the bird, regardless of where it’s leading you. So sure, that is a good thing. But it’s only temporary, a bandaid solution to your problem. Even if it leads you to water, or shelter, you’re not “saved.”

You’re not “saved” until you’re no longer lost, no longer in the woods. You have to get back to your home. You have to get back to a place where you know where you are in the world, and how to get what you need, and everything makes sense again.

It is the same way with music. Or any art.

Art can remind you of what’s good, and beautiful, and yes, true. But it is not the art that saves you. It is the truth that does the saving. The art just had a hand in reminding you of it. So it would be way more accurate to say “music helped me.” But you still have to deal with whatever it was that got you to the place where you felt like giving up. And part of that is making sure that you know what the song is saying has truth in it, and that truth actually applies to the problem you’re having, because you can lean on truth, and it’s what made the music worth anything in the first place. Otherwise, the music is just a distraction, and distractions end.

In that sense, it’s more like a tiger is stalking you through those woods. You can get away from it briefly, especially if something beautiful or good or true distracts you from the thought of laying down and letting it take you. But eventually you have to kill the tiger, or get out of the woods where it lives.

Truthfully—truthfully—a song can get you out of, or into, a state of mind and emotions. But those emotions have a source. And if you don’t get rid of the source, or neutralize the source, your songs are only going to be bloody bandages on a wound. Worse, the songs might make you start to love the sight of bloody bandages, when what you really need is disinfectant and actual healing.

I do know this from experience. I’m just saying, think about it.

[suriel-tea]

Friendly reminder Elain is older than Feyre.

Can we stop infantilizing her please? Propriety and innocence don’t mean infantilizing.

[clnclm]

[draftmare]

There is a lady on almost all of the popular FB pages posting expired Charles Owen helmets. A Charles Owen rep posted that she is not authorized to sell them and that Charles Owen won't honor any warranty on those helmets. She deleted her posts and reposted. People called her out again. She deleted her posts again and reposted. Basically every time people are like, hey, didn't CO tell you not to sell these? Or ask her the safety behind selling an expired helmet she deletes her posts and relists them.

Don't buy used helmets. Don't buy expired helmets. Don't buy a helmet off of a reseller off of FB. Only buy a helmet from an authorized tack shop where you know the helmet has been properly handled and stored. Your brain is not worth saving a few dollars.

[my-smial]

One of my soap boxes is that "we were never taught this in school" is the wrong way to look at most issues, for many reasons. It makes a sweeping generalization about all schools and all teachers in the US (usually) or even the world (sometimes), and is often not true. But once that generalization is made, it then directly implicates that the solution is Just Teach It. Either it is already taught and we're done (yay! often the case for me when people say that e.g. they were never taught about various American atrocities), or it's not taught and the solution is simply to mandate teaching it.

But that's not a solution. For one thing, the mandated topics to teach about are already ludicrous for most teachers in America, and declaring that we can solve education by creating an ever-expanding list of critical issues is just... not sustainable. But most importantly, declaring that people don't know a thing simply because it's not taught shifts the focus from pedagogy to legislation.

If we can mandate a topic be taught, that's a simple legislative solution. But people demonstrably can be taught a topic and yet forget it entirely months to years later, and this is a much harder problem to solve.

This is a pedagogy problem: how do we make learning interesting? How do we make it engaging? How do we prioritize topics such that students know they're learning not just for a test, but for wider life experience? How do we teach such that students are motivated and empowered to learn about the topics we don't have time for? These are questions we don't always know the answer to!

And perhaps even more than pedagogy, it's a society problem. How can a student learn when they're sleepy from working a midnight job to feed their family? When they haven't eaten since yesterday's free lunch? How do you care about algebra when you don't know if you'll have a house after the next rent payment is due? How do you go beyond memorizing for the test if you don't even have enough time for memorizing (remember, you've got 6 or 7 classes to memorize for)? How do you deal with all of this when you're managing a disability, or your parents are getting divorced, or you're in an accident and out of school for three months? When it costs $30k/year to be here so you better prioritize getting out and getting the best job you can to pay that back?

Problems in education are complicated. It's tempting to declare that if we Just Do One Thing, the problem will be solved. But that's a simple legislative band-aid over a much wider issue in the pedagogy and society surrounding how we learn.

[runeskiamorph]

Regarding the M-count mystery:

-It is unreasonable for us to assume the clones don't know they are in a Star Wars show. Therefore, the clones, 'soldiers programmed to follow orders without questions', not knowing what an M-count is or what midichlorians even are is COMPLETELY CANNON.

-The only times midichlorians are mentioned in the entire franchise is when the Jedi are talking with other Jedi. They never bring it up with 'outsiders' or even the parents of younglings. The parents and common folk just say "the child has mystic powers" and call them "sorcerers" of an "old religion". They don't know about midichlorians.

-It's also reasonable to assume the scientists working on the project don't know what they're looking at; they just know what to look for in a successful transfer. If they did know, they wouldn't be doing the same thing and expecting different results. Additionally, the Empire as a whole works on a "need to know" basis. Not every officer knew about Project Stardust, only the elite did. No one outside of Palpatine and his goons knew about Project Necromancer, and even they probably didn't know what the purpose was.

-Similarly, the Jedi would not have their archives and secrets public for everyone to exploit. Even if they did, the Empire erased their archives and altered history to maintain control.

-Rex wouldn't know about M-counts because he didn't need to know and just thought his General was crazy.

-Bounty Hunters wouldn't know because they're not payed to care. They just bring them in.

-Ventress WOULD know because she was trained by a sith who was a Jedi.

The Bad Batch didn't watch the Phantom Menace, aergo, they wouldn't know what we, the audience, knows all too well.

[demise-seems-dead]

my frustration

i normally talk about Canadian tv shows but omg i am so done with the loki fandom. heres my piece: you can ship lokius, sylki, nothing whatever, I don't give a shit. Sylvie, in my opinion, is a bad character. Do I love lokius with all my little gosh darn heart? Yes! Do I care if its not canon? Am I a sylvie hater because shes with loki? No! Not one bit. I don't like sylvie because she is a bad character, and should not be in loki. Would I like her if she wasnt in loki and in her own independent thing? No! Probably not at all! would it be lands better if she was though? Abso-fricken-lutey tooty-ly! If they want to make a badass better than loki girl with trauma and a cool badass story? By all means, go ahead! I'll hate it, but go ahead! dont hijack a series that could have been amazing and try and cram in stuff THAT IS NOT ABOUT THE TITLE CHARACTER AND THAT NOBODY ASKED FOR. do i think sylvie should be hated on for disrupting lokius shippers dreams? Not at all. I think sylvie should be hated because shes a (in my opinion) bad character. (Character being the key word here, as i have zero beef with the actor behind her, lovely lady im sure.) so there.

[ihrtmichael]

what al pacino movie is this

[masseffectdoctor]

Something that I think people need to understand and remember about Henry Kissinger is the fact that he was a Man in a position of relatively little personal power, in comparison to something like say a president.

However this absolute bastard war criminal is probably responsible personally for more death heartache and pain than just about any other single human being that's ever existed.

So as we crab rave and piss on his grave, I want you all to think about and remember the positions of power we see now. Especially so in the US. Because the decisions we make do affect the lives, happiness, and well-being of people all across the world.

So I'm gonna co-opt his death for a brief second to just remind you that he didn't happen in a vacuum. His destructive and monsterous existence was not born of thin air. People helped make him. People helped give him power.

Lets not be those people again. Let's do better than the people who put these war criminals in power.

[momoetry-blog]

Off my soap box

I’m finally at a place In my life Where I don’t have to Stand up and yell  How I feel Into the wind My voice drowned out By ignorance and fear I step down, I step back, Realizing our vibes don’t align Upon discovering something In you is closed Not open, welcome, or understanding, I’m disappointed, but I don’t explode My eyes are open wide I am seeing things clearly I quietly…

[lightofraye]

Oh gosh. I could get into detail as I was at a shelter!

They need: socks, shoes, undergarments, appropriate outfits for interviews, women's need various sanitary pads and tampons, diapers of all sizes, different combs and brushes,.... Make-up. I could go on. And due to different sizes, sometimes it'd be best to donate gift cards or money cards so people can get what they need in their size and suit their needs.

Keep in mind, POCs (people of color) often need different kinds of hair products, and those are often the least donated as well. There are also various skin needs that need other kinds of special products.

This is why I say gift cards or money cards are better.

Plus, some shelters will just sell the donations as opposed to giving them to the people in their shelters. This happened at the shelter I was at. They had gotten stuff donated to be given to the mothers and children... and instead were sold off.

Here's what I'd advise instead.

Go into the shelter and ask to take several families or members of the shelter population out to a shopping trip. Or donate directly to them so the shelter employees can't take the stuff for themselves or sell.

This way it goes directly to the people in need.

[i-really-like-phrogs]

Hi im new to the Beetlejuice fandom and I just wanted to tell you that I love your art! I kinda wanted to make some of my own, but im not very artistically talented lol

have a good day!

I absolutely appreciate the first sentiment… though I’d like to pull a red pen out on the second part.

You don’t need to be talented to make art that you and others enjoy. In fact, it is impossible to become talented if you never make stuff that isn’t.

I have been drawing Beetlejuice fanart since 2019, and the growth I’ve made since I first started is practically insurmountable.

My Beetlejuice art started like THIS:

And now it looks like this:

Growth is so, so possible!!! I’m nowhere near the level of talent that exists in this fandom, but I would never have gotten this far if I didn’t keep making art even when it sucked. I have tons and tons of really old stuff showing my progression, and while it’s hard to look at sometimes, I know this version of my art would never be possible without it.

So please, friend, make the art. Make all the art: Make bad art, horrendous art, repulsive art… just make art, and bit by bit, it becomes less bad, then okayish, then eventually you’ll even have something half decent! You’ll put so many ideas into this world that way, and someone in the world out there needs it.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.